MODERN LIFE IN AN ANCIENT CLIFF DWELLING.
"No sooner was our work on the hut completed," continued the Professor, "than I determined to make an exploration of the valley, for I had yet to learn of its size, what it produced, whether it contained any inhabitants besides ourselves, and if there was any entrance to it other than the one by which we had come. So, after an early breakfast, I set off down the stream that flowed past our camp, carrying the fowling-piece over my shoulder.
"As I advanced, the fertility of the soil was a constant source of delight, for it not only produced a heavy growth of grasses, besides the useful amole, or soap-root, and many other plants, but a great variety of trees, among which I recognized cottonwood, cedar, the piñon or nut-bearing pine, and peach-trees that had run wild from some long-ago planting. These last showed the valley to have been visited by human beings since the coming of Spaniards to this country, for by them were peaches introduced. I also found an abundance of cotton-plants with full bolls, which, though small in size from lack of cultivation, would yield a serviceable fibre. No trace of human beings was to be seen save the ancient ruins of a few huts, together with mounds of broken pottery and stone implements of every description.
"When late in the day I regained camp, almost my first greeting from mother was, 'Whatever thee has discovered, Rufus, I am persuaded that we who remained behind have found something of still greater value.'
"Then she told me how, with the keen instinct of her race for such things, Hagar, while gathering pine-nuts, had run across a trail leading up the face of the cliffs, and had followed it to this very place. Mother had also climbed to the platform, taken a hasty glance at its marvels, and then, leaving Hagar and the child up there, had returned to meet me, and conduct me to the wonderful place they had found.
"Smiling at her excitement, for I could not then realize the value of the discovery, I followed her up the steep acclivity, wondering at her endurance, especially when we came to the last fifteen feet of perpendicular steps. When we finally gained the place where Hagar smilingly awaited us, I was amazed at the width of the platform and the extent of the view to be obtained from it. I longed for the spy-glass which had formed part of the equipment of our wagon, and which had been left in the hut. I even proposed to return and get it, thinking that the platform and view from it embraced the whole of Hagar's discovery. At that mother interfered, and saying that she had something of much greater importance than a view to show me, directed my attention to the further end of the platform. Then for the first time I became aware of a small house occupying the entire space beneath a jutting of the cliff.
"It was built of stone, so deftly laid and so colored by time that even a short distance away it could not be distinguished from the adjacent rock. From the shape of its doorway, which was thus"—here the Professor traced a rude diagram in the ashes of the hearth—"but which we afterward altered to suit our own notions, I knew that the structure was a cliff-dwelling of the most ancient pattern.
"In an instant I was as excited as mother, though with a different reason, for this was the very type of dwelling I had been most anxious to study, and if it should prove to have remained unvisited since its abandonment, my fondest hopes of discovery would be fulfilled. Nor was I disappointed, for an examination of the interior revealed a profusion of unbroken pottery, implements of stone, horn, and bone, pictographs or rude drawings on the walls, agate and jasper fragments of fossil trees, such as I had noticed in abundance at the lower end of the valley, and many other things, all in such a fine state of preservation as gave instant proof that here was a treasure not yet duplicated in America.
"Over all these things and on the floor the dust of ages lay thick, and rose in suffocating clouds with our every movement. Heedless of it, I penetrated each of the three rooms contained in the house, wild with delight over what I saw. I was somewhat taken aback when I found that mother, who had seemed to share my enthusiasm, was all this time regarding the place with the eye of a housewife, and as one in which we might establish a home for such time as we should remain in the valley. Finally, however, she won me to her way of thinking, and though we returned to the camp for that night, we set to work early the next day to put 'Cliff Castle,' as mother called it, in a habitable condition.
"On my second visit to it I discovered the steps leading to the top of the mesa and the ruined watch-tower that crowns it. There I also found a rock cistern, and a broken conduit, that could be opened at pleasure, by which its waters had formerly been conveyed to the house. This, with Hagar's skilled assistance, I soon repaired, and by nightfall of that day we had the ancient cliff dwelling cleansed and ready for occupancy. Another day was necessary for the removal of such goods as we needed from below, but with that accomplished, we were comfortably settled in what has been from that day to this our home.